Tag: gauze

Today as part of our Handmade Baby series we’ve got 3 tutorials for you on how to make your own swaddle blankets. Each way is simple, fast, uses a different fabric, and ends up with a perfect sized blanket. Let’s get started.

Flannel swaddle blanket tutorial:

Most flannel fabric comes in widths of 42-45 inches. This makes your job really easy. You need 2 yards of flannel, and you will get 3 swaddling blankets from this yardage.

Use your scissors to curve the top and bottom edges of each piece. Zigzag or serge across the top and bottom edges of your flannel blankets. (The side edges are selvedge edges, so you don’t need to finish them unless you want to!)

Gauze swaddle blanket tutorial:

Gauze comes in a wide variety of widths. If your gauze is 54” wide like ours from Cali Fabrics, use this tutorial. If it is narrower or has a print that would end up sideways, use the flannel swaddle blanket tutorial above. From each yard of gauze, you will get 2 gauze swaddle blankets.For each yard of fabric, cut your fabric in 1/2 width wise. Your pieces and finished gauze blanket will be 36 x 27 inches. Zigzag or serge the edges of the gauze.

There you have it, beautifully soft and drapey gauze swaddle blankets. This substrate is perfect for summer months when you want to swaddle without extra warmth.

Knit swaddle blanket tutorial:

Sometimes knit fabric has a tendency to curl on the edges, so this knit swaddle blanket tutorial helps stop that issue.

Sometimes I over-plan. Do you ever do that? Recently I decided I needed a new wrap. Not the kind you eat, the kind you wear!

I have one baby wrap (not pictured in this post) that I absolutely love and have used to tie on my babies for year. But this wrap has 2 limitations that were going to make it difficult to use for traveling, which was why I needed a new baby wrap. My old, very expensive, very well used wrap was too hot for a summer trip and too long for easy use in airplanes and airports. So I spent a very long time researching how to make my own baby wrap. I read many DIY baby wrap tutorials, dug through my stash for a lightweight fabric, and cut and sewed, shaped, fit, made french seams, measured, wrapped, unwrapped, and so on until I had what I thought was the perfect baby wrap! (I also felt great solidarity by sewing with linen along with the Challenge Create: Fabric Swap Edition Linen ladies!)

But…I just wasn’t happy with it! The brown floral linen fabric I used for the baby wrap ended up being scratchy as well as lightweight, so not great for all day on and airplane and in airports. And in my effort to make the wrap short, I made it almost too short, and wasn’t certain this was the perfect wrap for traveling. So the day before I left on my trip, I raced down to the fabric store, bought 2 yards of black gauze fabric, washed it, zig-zagged the edges, and that was it!

Guess which wrap I like better? Guess which wrap I wear all the time: the linen one I took over 2 hours to make, or the gauze one that took 5 minutes? The gauze one, of course! Now both baby and I love a baby wrap.

It’s our favorite way to travel, both across the country, and around the house!

He usually falls asleep after a few minutes in the baby wrap.

It’s handy to have my hands free, and baby gets to be close to me. So now I have 3 baby wraps: 1 for winter when the extra length and weight are perfect! One for hot summer days and short trips around town. One for all day whether hiking, gardening, or just hanging out!

As one of my friends said recently, “You can never have too many wraps!” I think I’ll make a knit baby wrap next!